Digital Marketing Heroes 2014

This was the first Digital Marketing Heroes, a conference organized by Sociomantic for clients, partners and friends in the CEE region.

At #DMH2014, we got super-powered with the knowledge shared by our talented and knowledgeable speakers and panelists, motivated by the great conversations with the audience and inspired by the creativity and talent of the musical performers. For those of you who aren’t big on reading, here’s the conference in two minutes:

The Power of Personalization, Programmatic, and Multi-Channel

The conference was led by Radosław Kotarski, founder of online magazine Polimaty.pl. The popular YouTube star revealed the identity of our top-secret opening guest, Kinga Baranowska, one of the world’s top Himalayan mountaneers. Kinga shared with us thrilling stories of her mountain expeditions and achievements, peppered with advice on how she overcame even life-threatening obstacles on her journeys — stories that inspired and motivated many of us in the audience.

Shortly after Kinga, the stage was taken by Thomas Brandhoff, Managing Director of Sociomantic Labs. Thomas talked about the role of technology in helping advertisers to achieve the personalization holy grail: marketing plans made for segments of one, serving up user-individual strategy across devices and channels. Next up, Jan Wittek, Head of Client Development at Google, spoke about audience buying in a multi-device world. According to Jan’s presentation, almost 40 percent of users in Poland use three or more connected devices, making it easy than ever to reach users, but more difficult than ever to determine which device is best to target at a given moment. Finally, at the end of the first conference segment, guests had the pleasure of watching a fireside chat between Robert Bednarski, then-CEO of Grupa Onet.pl (biggest portal in Poland) and our very own Robert Bosch, CSO of Sociomantic. The two discussed the online industry development in Poland, the biggest opportunities and challenges ahead in the market as well as the mobile and multi-screen strategies of Onet and the trend of programmatic buying adoption in Poland.

For more insights, check out the post-show video interview with Robert Bosch below.

How Tesco, Coca-Cola and Stilago Engage with Customers

The second part of #DMH2014 started with a presentation by Dylan Slaney, Head of Brand UK & Tesco Markets at dunnhumby, who wowed the audience with examples of new retail innovations (like virtual shopping in Korean subway stations — New York just got its own version) while emphasizing the importance of “making it personal” to keep customers loyal. But, according to Dylan, it’s not always easy: “Finding the right customer, in the right channel, at the right time, with the right message is now more complex than ever before.” Then Stefan Konopatzki, CMO of the prominent CEE fashion e-shop Stilago, talked about the importance of what he called Active Buyers Management, explaining how Stilago has uses programmatic technologies to reach their best customers with personalized advertising, and the ease of scaling that strategy across markets with the right programmatic partner. The final keynote presentation of the night belonged Urszyla Szymczyk, Activation Manager from Coca-Cola. Urszula explained to the audience how Coca-Cola gave it’s logo — that most prized brand asset — to its customers in the much-talked-about Share a Coke campaign, which used the personalization strategy of printing typical Polish first names on its bottles to bring Coke closer to its customers in Poland.

Is Poland Ready for Personalization?

This and other pertinent questions were answered by participants of the panel discussion that closed the conference section of the night. Adrian Gorczyca from Play, Paweł Ostrowski from NC+, Krzysztof Sobieszek from ZenithOptimedia, Tomasz Musiał from SmartAdserver and Maciej Wyszyński from Sociomantic discussed the ins and outs of the Polish programamtic ecosystem and the importance of automation and personalization. In the view of some panelists, personalized advertising is an efficient tool to increase sales, but it often requires specific skills and education about the use of “Big Data,” which is no simple task. As the panelists discussed the issues of the day, a graffiti mural took shape on the wall behind them in real-time.

We’d like to extend an extra-special thanks to all of our speakers, as well as Archeo and Night Marks Electric Trio, our musical heroes who lit up the stage with their performances during the conference breaks.

In the end, the #DMH2014 united more than 120 true marketing heroes of CEE region. We had an opportunity to host marketers from FMCG, Retail, Electronics, Telecommunication, Technology, Pharmaceuticals and more, including representatives from media agencies, publishers, technology providers, media. Thank you to our esteemed guests for your presence on this night to remember!